Scratching Travis Dermott Indicative of Larger Philosophic Problem

The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to scratch Travis Dermott for tonight’s game against the Ottawa Senators.

According to Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock, Travis Dermott is now in a rotation with Connor Carrick and Andreas Borgman for two spots.

So far this year, Babcock has made Polak a regular in the lineup.  He has not skated Auston Matthews as much as other teams skate their best player.  He has started 3 on 3 overtime with Leo Komarov on the ice.  Babcock broke up his best defense pairing from last year, doesn’t start Matthews and Nylander on most power-plays, doesn’t give Mitch Marner near enough ice-time and generally makes lineup decisions that all but his staunchest supporters agree are terrible.

But scratching Travis Dermott is his worst move yet.

Mike Babcock may be  a master tactician.  He may be an expert motivator.  It is obvious that he is an excellent coach, and it is equally obvious that NHL coaches should have autonomy over their lineup.  Only Babcock knows what his motivations and reasoning are.  It could very well be that he has excellent reasoning that I either don’t know about or don’t understand.  It could be that he thinks differently than me and is in fact correct.

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But it also may be that he is wrong,. The great part about hockey is that it doesn’t matter. Babcock isn’t taking my advice.  But we follow the team and enjoy analyzing it.  The Leafs should be playing Travis Dermott though, that is a given.  But scratching him is just  a symptom of a larger problem: The Toronto Maple Leafs have a coach who is beholden to the types of players who we have empirical evidence that says do not help hockey teams win games.

Travis Dermott

Dermott has played two games for the Leafs so far, and they’ve both been fairly great. In 28 minutes, Dermott has posted a team high 58.93% possession rating.  Of course the sample size is tiny, but even so, those are elite level numbers and I don’t know why you’d ever take a guy out who’s controlling nearly 60% of the play.

Babcock himself promoted Dermott into the top four after one game, and has nothing to but praise for him in the press.  Sitting him tonight is clearly not a punishment, and it’s fair to take Babcock at his word when he says that he’s just using a rotation. For this reason, I don’t think it’s worth getting into an argument over meritocracy.  It’s clear that Dermott has been recognized for his great play and that Babcock is hesitant to take Polak’s style of play out of the lineup.

That is the part I don’t agree with.  Dressing an old-school checking shot-blocker who can’t get out of his own zone and bleeds shots against is the mistake here.  Dermott sitting is just the symptom of a bigger problem.   The philosophy of Mike Babcock hasn’t evolved with the times.  The NHL is based on speed and players like Polak just get exposed.  The Leafs might replace Polak with someone like Eric Gudbranson, but he’s just a younger guy with the same problem: puck moving defenseman dominate the game.  Ever since Nick Lidstrom proved you could be the best defenseman in the world without ever throwing a thunderous body check or leaving your position to cross-check a guy in the throat, guys like Polak have been trending out of the game.

Next: Gudbranson and the Leafs: Rumours

As much as the problem is that Polak is playing (as opposed to Dermott not) it’s still stupid to sit a player who makes your team drastically better. Especially when that player looks – albeit in just over two games – like the exact player the team has (one imagines) been looking to acquire for over a year now.

Stats from naturalstattrick.com